


Challenging History

by Gixxer_Pilot



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Dysfunctional Family, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Resolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-15 23:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gixxer_Pilot/pseuds/Gixxer_Pilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McCoy didn't buy the old adage that time healed all wounds. Neither did his daughter Joanna. The problem? As a publicity stunt orchestrated by the Admiralty, both McCoys are now officially part of the Enterprise's crew. And with nearly twenty years of animosity to work through, no one is particularly pleased about it, least of all Jo and Len.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Notes: I wrote this little ditty going on two years ago as a very rough, very quick reply to Space Case Writer 13's unfinished Star Trek fic. In her 'verse, among other things, she featured a circa 22-year-old Joanna McCoy, whose relationship with her absentee father could best be described as 'tumultuous'. I had no intentions of posting what I'd written when I shipped it off to her, but I decided it was doing no good sitting on my flash drive collecting virtual dust. So, I dusted it off, polished it up as best I could to make it all shiny and pretty, and then added in a bit of Kirk and Chapel for good measure. It's unbetaed, so any mistakes are mine. Despite the fact there might be a spelling error or rough sentence here or there, I hope it passes the mass' muster. (Oh, and happy birthday, Spacie!) Enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters you'll see in this fic. I don't even own the characterization of Joanna McCoy. That belongs to Space Case Writer 13. Spacie, I'm just borrowing Jo for a little bit. I promise I'll give her back if Tony Stark lets you take a break from The Avengers fandom. (But for the record, I'd like you to keep writing Avengers. It's win!)

* * *

**Chapter 1**

"Christine, help."

Enterprise head nurse Christine Chapel rolled over in her bed, buried her face in her pillow and screamed. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pretended for a blissful few seconds that ignoring the pleading man on the other end of the comm would make the problem disappear. ' _I'm not listening, he can't hear me, la, la, la, la!_ ' she thought as she wondered what could possibly precipitate this kind of a rude awakening at such an ungodly hour.

The continued an insistent chime of the comm alert cut through the silence of her quarters right before Kirk's voice joined the cacophony of noise. "I know you're awake, and I'm not leaving you alone until you at least acknowledge that I'm breathing."

Whipping her head around Chapel stabbed the button mercilessly to allow the captain a face-to-face connection. She pointed one finger directly at the screen with one hand while she tried desperately to tame her normally impeccable blonde hair with the other. "Were you born with this kind of shit timing, or did you really have to work to perfect it?"

Jim snorted. "The answer is, 'D: none of the above'. It was a dormant gene I discovered by accident."

A wry smile crossed the head nurse's lips as she looked down to ensure that she was, in fact, wearing clothes. Satisfied that she'd at last remembered to throw on a tank top and yoga pants before she crashed, Christine told Kirk, "Touché, Jim. I suppose there has to be a reason that you're still alive after captaining this ship and your insane crew for the past fifteen years. Well, aside from that magic horseshoe everyone is convinced you have shoved up your ass," she added, flippantly waving her hand through the air.

"That among other things," Kirk replied with a suggesting waggle of his eyebrows.

"Leave it to you to find a way to make that sentence sexual. And for the record, no, I did not need to know that," Chapel said with a hard shudder.

Kirk actually threw his head back and laughed, loud and long from the pit of his belly. "You do my physical. You should know the truth on that."

"No, Dr. McCoy does your physical. I just keep him from killing you while he's got you on the table, that's all. But, if you're going to wake me up in the middle of the night after I've worked a double with the crabbiest surgeon in the entire Fleet, I might just forget about next year's appointment and let him finish what he claims he's started," Chapel said, drawing her knees up to her chest and pushing a piece of hair behind her ears. She stretched her neck and rubbed at a particularly sore spot on her lower back.

"Nah," Jim said, waving a hand at the screen from his quarters. "You wouldn't do that, because the next target your boss finds won't be as amusing."

"Well, there is that," Chapel admitted with a shrug of her petite shoulders. "But as much as I love chatting with you half dressed in the middle of gamma shift, I am still tired. What do you want, Captain?"

"They're at it again," Jim said succinctly, his face going from relaxed and passive to stony and resolute in just under a second.

Christine had to work to keep the scowl off her face. "Joanna and Len?" she asked tightly.

"Who else?" Kirk said with a disgruntled sigh.

Chapel groaned and collapsed back into the warm, comfortable embrace of her overstuffed bed. Covering her face with her hands, she swore loudly enough for Kirk to hear it on his end of the feed. "Why! Why do they do this to us?"

"Because we love them, even if makes us idiots for it?" Kirk supplied ruefully with a self-deprecating smirk.

"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled, scrubbing one hand over her face. Christine sighed, pushed herself up from her bed and licked her lips. Staring at the man on the screen, she set her shoulders, pulled her hair back with the binder that permanently resided on her wrist and exhaled a long, deep breath. "All right. You want to play this like we normally do?" she asked after a beat.

"What do you always tell me? If it ain't broke, don't fix it?"

"So divide and conquer it is then?" Christine asked, throwing her legs over the side of her bed. "I'll take Jo."

"I've got Bones."

"Meet you in five," Chapel said and cut the connection.

* * *

She heard the argument well before she saw it. Even through the thick walls of sickbay, there was no mistaking the sounds of a full-fledged McCoy argument. Chapel was sorely regretting the decision to walk past her replicator on the way out the door. A scalded tongue was a small price to pay for a little bit of awareness a quick cup of coffee would have afforded her.

"Good Lord, how long has this been going on?" Christine asked as she walked into the waiting area near her boss' office. She pursed her lips and pushed Kirk's booted feet from the surface of the admin desk stationed just to the right of the door, glaring at the captain as the man lounged casually in the chair he'd pulled up for comfort. "Conduct unbecoming, Captain."

Jim paused the game he was playing on his comm and flipped the unit closed. He looked down at his grey Starfleet Academy sweatshirt and jeans and shrugged. "You know my rules: no uniform, no rank. But to answer your question, they've been screaming at one another for the past ten minutes. Probably longer, actually, if you count the time it took me to walk down here after M'Benga called me."

"Jesus," Chapel muttered as she heard a particularly sharp set of expletives hurled by a male voice followed by an equally ferocious higher pitched retort.

Jim read the Enterprise's head nurse's expression. "No shit. It sounds like World War IV in there. I don't think Spock and I did the much yelling even when we were kicking Nero's ass from here to…whatever time he ended up in."

Planting one hand on her hip, she pointed to the sealed door that was McCoy's office. "I think I'd rather take on an entire pack of Klingons right now instead of those two."

"Christine," Jim began, drawing out the sentence to grab Chapel's attention, "You and me both."

"So now what?" she asked, glaring at the door as if it might help.

Jim hopped up from his chair and walked up beside Christine. "Now, we just have to interrupt."

Chapel turned her head and fixed the blonde man with an incredulous stare. "You go right ahead with that. Let me know how it works out for you."

Sighing, Jim set his jaw and took a step towards the door. "Since when did 'captain' become synonymous with 'relationship counselor'? Tell me that."

"Since the Admiralty thought it would be a good idea to put two generations of McCoys on the same ship?" she asked, rhetorically apologetic.

"Remind me to kick their asses, would you?" Jim growled lowly.

Chapel crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at the thought of the stuffy, out of touch men in their shiny brocade in their perfectly safe offices back on Earth. It was so nice to be appreciated. "I'm not going to remind you, Jim. I'm going to help you do it."

Kirk, one foot hovering in mid air, spun on his foot and barked out a laugh. "Now _that_ I would pay good credits to see!"

Chapel allowed herself the small luxury of a chuckle before she waved her hand back towards the door, and the reason both senior staff members were out of bed at 0300. "You want to do the honors, or should I?"

Kirk tipped his head back and forth, lifting his eyebrows as he thought. "I don't know. Maybe we should let this one play out a little bit, let them get it out of their systems. This is going to keep happening unless they figure out their issues with one another."

"You think that's wise, Jim?" Christine asked, trepidation and surprise coloring her tone. "There's almost twenty years of pent-up animosity between them. I've heard both sides – I know you have, too. I don't think one screaming fight is going to fix everything that's gone wrong. They're both too stubborn for their own good."

"Of course I know that," Kirk snorted. "But it sure as hell can't get any worse."

Christine disengaged her selective deafness and allowed the rip-roaring fight between father and daughter to seep into her consciousness yet again. She swore she heard the sound of something fragile whip through the air a millisecond before it smashed into little tiny pieces against the wall. The yelling inside paused long enough for both combatants to take a breath every fourth sentence as the fighting continued in earnest. Sure, it couldn't get any worse, but she wasn't entirely convinced this was the way to make it better.

But the one thing Christine _did_ know for sure was that there was no way in hell she was about to interrupt the fight.

Unlike Kirk, she really didn't have a death wish.

* * *

 **Next Up** : Joanna and Len have a 'heart to heart'. Oh, dear.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: I hope this story isn't coming off as too fractured to make any sense. It was hard balancing act, figuring out how to blend the necessary exposition with the requisite pacing. This story, for all intents and purposes, is really a teeny story pulled from a much larger story, almost like a deleted scene for a DVD. It's been tough figuring it out, but I think I have a handle on it now. So, without further adieu, here is that rip-roaring McCoy vs. McCoy fight. Enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek, but I did own quite a few fights like this with my own father. Like Spacie's characterizations of Len and Jo, my dad and me are way too similar in personality for the world's good. Like, seriously.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

" _Are you out of your goddamned mind?!_ " Leonard McCoy shouted at his daughter.

"What do you think, Dad? I have the misfortune of sharing thirteen chromosomes with you! That, according to just about everyone in Starfleet, absolutely makes me crazy!" Joanna McCoy roared at the man sitting behind the massive desk.

"No, the only thing that's crazy is you beaming to a hostile station full of Klingons. What did you expect? That you'd be able to waltz right up to them, tap one on the shoulder, and ask them to play nice with us?" he yelled, bringing both hands up, palms up, in a gesture of total exasperation.

Joanna scoffed. "Don't patronize me, or what I did. I knew what I was doing."

McCoy's eyebrows shot up to his hairline while his hands gestured wildly in front of his face. "Oh, you do now? You're fresh from the Academy, but you're now an expert negotiator after a few weeks in the black? Well, why don't we call Admiral Pike and send you right back to Earth? You can chair the Intergalactic Relations committee he's been trying so hard to pull together."

Joanna bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. She felt the nerve in her left eye twitch as her blood pressure spiked. "Subtlety is not your thing. Why don't you stop your pathetic attempts at sugarcoating the subject and just tell me what's on your mind."

"Oh, do you? Great. You're absolutely insane, Joanna!" he yelled.

The young lady shifted her weight and rolled her eyes, rocking from foot to foot while she stared down her nose. "You've been on this ship, with all these people for all these years, and _I'm_ the crazy one? Let me tell you something: there is no possible way I can be the same level of 'crazy bitch' as you are 'irresponsible asshole'!"

"You have no right to lecture me about responsibility when you're incapable of following one simple order from your direct superior!" McCoy shouted right back, heedless of the fact that his voice matched his daughter's intensity, tone and volume level tit for tat. "What you did could have gotten you killed!"

"And if I hadn't done anything, we sure as shit would be dead right now! It was my fault. I screwed up, and I'll be damned if I let someone else fix it," she insisted.

Growling under his breath, McCoy simply cocked his head to one side. "Stop playing the martyr and acting like you're invincible! You're not! You and Jim – neither of you have any concept of that little thing called listening!"

Joanna slapped both palms against the hard surface of her father's desk. "Just what the hell would you know about listening? You're incapable of that! You've proven that, time and time again!" she screamed, though it was clear to both that she wasn't talking about her last failed mission in the slightest bit.

"I know plenty about it!"

"Really now? We're talking about the same man who yells and swears any time anyone challenges his authority, the same man who told off Spock the first time you two met for no other reason that you disagreed with him? Come on, dad! Keep talking and show me what a raging hypocrite you are!"

The doctor vaulted himself out of his chair and around to the front of his desk. He came to a halt inches from the space where Jo was leaning. Waving his hand through the air, a fringe of still mostly brown hair flopped over Len's face with each accentuated gesture of his body. "Joanna, you are the most unreasonable person I've ever met!"

"Well, I guess I know where I get it from, _Leonard_ ," Joanna sniped as she emphasized the use of his given first name, something even those who knew him best rarely did.

The doctor snorted out loud. "I may not be perfect, but at least I know when I'm wrong."

Joanna actually laughed. The sarcastic, disbelieving sound caught in her throat and died on her lips. Shaking her head while she waved one hand through the air, she stared at him incredulously. "You know when you're wrong? Oh, that's rich. Like you admitted you were wrong all those years ago when you ditched me, or when you had the chance to come clean about having me in the first place!"

"You want to keep dragging this up, Jo? Fine! Let's do it again. What is it going to be this time? How you hated Clay? How I deserted you? What?" McCoy replied, crossing his arms over his chest while he glared at his only child.

"Wow," she began, eyes wide. Unable to fully keep the warble of shock from filtering across her face, she added flatly, "You know what? Everyone on this ship is right about you. You really are a dick."

Joanna's face flinched, and in that instant, McCoy knew he went too far. He saw the hurt flash through her eyes that she just as quickly covered by replacing it with boiling, white-hot rage. Kicking himself, he bit his lip and opened his mouth to attempt some sort of apology.

Closing her eyes, the young lady held up a hand. "You know what, Dad? Forget it. Forget I asked. It was stupid of me to think you'd understand why I did what I did in the first place."

McCoy relented, the muscles in his face clenching and unclenching. Feeling all the anger seep from his body, he reached out and tried to lay a comforting, fatherly hand on his daughter's arm. "Jo, wait. I didn't-"

Joanna jerked her arm away from her dad's hold as if his touch physically burned her. "Don't," she warned lowly, glaring at him with a steely intensity that was assuredly an inherited McCoy trait.

"I didn't mean to-," he started, only to have his daughter turn her back.

Ignoring her father, Jo hastily grabbed her things and began angrily stuffing her belongings into the workout bag. She jabbed ineffectually at her sweatshirt when it caught on the zipper. Mumbling, she bit out, "Maybe mom was right about you." He voice shook; whether it was from anger or sadness, Joanna wasn't even sure herself. All she knew was that she was not about to give her father the pleasure of seeing her panic.

Making one last failed attempt to stuff all her belongings back in her bag, Joanna slung it haphazardly across her body and nearly stomped toward the door. She shot one last glare over her shoulder, fully expecting to see her dad's harsh eyes staring back at her. Instead, Joanna was caught off guard. In the place of the steely glare and rigid posture she expected, her father was slumped in his chair, head in his hands. Fingering the strap of the duffel, Jo shook her head and resolutely took one more step toward the room's exit. She was about a half a foot from the sensor of the door when a voice stopped her.

"Joanna, please."

Tipping her head back until she was looking straight at the ceiling, Joanna cursed herself blue under her breath, sighed dramatically and then came to a reluctant halt. " _What?_ " she asked, her voice taking on a steely edge.

"How many times are we going to do this?" Though the question itself was identical to the one he posed a few minutes prior, the tone and the context spoke volumes about the query's intentions. His voice was quiet, lower than his regular conversational volume. It held no hostility, no sarcasm, and no edge. If McCoy's tone had to be classified, it might be stuck into the category of 'weary.' Coming from him, it was certainly strange.

A childish part of Joanna, one she kept tucked safely away in the recesses of her mind, hoped there was a ring of truth to the statement her father uttered. But her adult mind, the one cynical toward anyone with a pulse, wouldn't allow her to believe anything her old man said, even if his tongue came notarized. ' _Thanks for another great personality trait, Dad_ ,' she thought bitterly. Snorting, Jo whirled around and replied sarcastically, "Well, let's see. I think we have some lost time to make up for. The four months I've been on this ship is not _nearly_ enough time for you to cram in the fifteen years of berating you missed when you took off and ditched me."

Len's head snapped up. Vehemently, he insisted, "I didn't ditch you!"

"Oh really? Then tell me what exactly it was you did, because it sure as hell felt like it! I bounced around all over the planet and then the universe with her and Clay, and you never bothered to check. Hell, I was the goddamned Academy, and you didn't even know I was there! That's your problem! _You don't care I exist!"_

McCoy slapped his closed fist down on the desktop so hard it rattled the various holos and PADDs on the surface. "Bullshit, Joanna!"

When her father finally looked up, Jo had to fight to stay her ground. Never in her life had she ever seen the level of intensity in his eyes as she did in that second. As a child, she harbored memories of his expressive face. She thought she'd seen him in every facet of life; whether he was angry, happy, embarrassed, sad, defiant, proud, or exasperated, his face always told the story everyone else could read. But when his eyes met hers, there, in the middle of his office, Joanna saw something different – she finally saw pure and unadulterated pain.

Jo chewed on her lip. The silence that rocketed through the room was deafening. Her hands hung insipidly at her sides while her heart warred with her mind. Hesitantly, she walked forward and stopped a few feet in front of his desk. "Do you mean that? All of this?" she began, moving her hand in a circle on front of her chest. Raising her chin and steeling her resolve, she took a shaky breath and added, "Because I don't have time for games."

"It's not a game," McCoy insisted.

Joanna swallowed hard and pulled the chair stationed in front of her father's desk, hesitant to sit. Instead, she used it as a physical and metaphorical barrier between her and her father. "It better not be. I've had enough of those," she said flatly, leaning all her weight on the backrest of the chair. "I'm a big girl. I can handle the truth."

Leonard sat, noiselessly rolling a PADD over from edge to edge on the top of his desk. He looked like the fate of the universe was resting on the decision he was about to make. Finally, he looked back up at Joanna and said, "I hope so, because it's long overdue."

"What are you talking about?" Joanna asked, narrowing her eyes. Shoving her hands in the pockets of her track pants, she searched his face. "What is this about?"

"It's about honesty." McCoy motioned with his hand to the chair Jo was using as a support. He exhaled, long and drawn out. "Sit down, please. I should have done this years ago, but I didn't know how."

The small red bag Joanna was holding deflated in her lap, mirroring the sinking feeling that was forming in the pit of her stomach. Her mind spun at 20,000 RPMs, wondering just what was so shocking that it elicited this kind of reaction. Her dad never said 'please' and he wasn't polite. He barked orders, raised eyebrows and hypoed his patients into submission just because he felt like it. The new vibe of sudden uncertainty she got from him was like the clammy feeling she got when she was sick. It just felt…gross. "Should have done what? I don't get it, Dad."

Len rubbed his eyes. Well, at least she wasn't calling him Leonard this time. Sighing, he ran one hand through his already impressively messy hair. More civilly, he said, "I didn't abandon you, Jo. I never wanted to. If I had my way, I wouldn't have left you."

The fire that was Jo's temper flashed again. "But you did. And then I never saw you again until I stepped onto this ship," she bit out, tapping her right index finger on the arm of the chair in time with the last four words of her sentence.

McCoy nodded. He had his reasons for his actions, and while he wasn't sure Joanna would ever truly understand, he owed it her to at least try to explain himself. "What did your mother tell you about why we split up? What do you remember?" he asked after a pause. When Joanna's face began to contort with rage, McCoy clarified, "I promise I'm not going to badmouth her. I just need to know where I should start."

She shook her head, the anger fading into wariness mixed with cynicism. Her curiosity over the early years of her life warred with the ingrained need to project her rage at someone or something, lest it swallow her whole. Taking a deep breath, Jo shrugged. "Not much, actually. You guys fought a lot, and I felt like I couldn't do anything right. Then I think I started a fire in the kitchen, but I don't remember all of it. I dunno."

"Oh, Joanna. It was never your fault. It was us, your mom and me. We just didn't work as a couple, and I guess we couldn't be good parents together, either. Your mom – she's your mother and at one point I loved her. But we had different goals and different priorities."

The young engineer cocked her head to the side. "But you married her."

McCoy nodded, reaching for the bottom drawer of his desk. He pulled out two tumblers and the bottle of bourbon Jim got him for his birthday the year previous. He poured two fingers in one glass and four in the other, handing Joanna the less full of the pair. Taking a sip from his own, Leonard said, "I did. I thought that maybe she'd outgrow some of the childishness I saw in her when we first married. We were young; kids and a house doesn't seem like something fun to think about when you're twenty," he finished with a shrug.

"So that's not a lie? She never wanted kids?" Joanna asked, spinning the glass in an oblong circle on her dad's desk. Her heart thundered in her chest as she waited for her father to respond. That, among a small handful of others, comprised her handful of million-credit questions, ones she always wanted to ask but never had the guts. And now, here was the opportunity, staring her straight in the face.

Smiling sadly, Len replied, "No, it's not a lie, Jo. I wanted a family, and she didn't. I think she was just scared. When she told me she was pregnant with you, we were both excited. I couldn't wait to spoil you rotten. And when you were born, I did. I did everything I thought I should have done to make your mother happy. I just did it in the wrong way."

"How?"

McCoy took another sip of his drink. "I thought that if I worked every spare shift I the hospital would give me, the extra money and status would make your mother happy. But I was too wrapped up in myself to see that's not what she really wanted."

"So what happened?" Joanna asked succinctly.

"Hell if I know," he snorted. "One day, I woke up and I realized that our house wasn't a home. Your mom knew it just as well, but we were both too stubborn and proud to admit defeat and get the divorce. Looks like you got that trait, too," he said with a resigned sigh. "It got to the point that all either of us had left was you. And it was enough, for both of us."

"So then what changed? I don't understand. You left me with mom with Clay. I'm not really a fan of his, I won't lie," she said coyly with a grimace.

Taking a deep breath, McCoy hoped that the next sentence that came out of his mouth didn't sound like an excuse, like an attempt at placation. "I made mistakes, ones that don't make me very proud. I had—I have a problem."

"You drink too much. That's hardly a revelation, and it's also common knowledge, Dad," Joanna said casually, crossing her arms over her chest and locking gazes with her father's. His flickered, and then relocated to a random point against the far wall. "You also have a temper and you work too hard. I know your head nurse and your captain, and Captain Kirk's mentor was my advisor at the Academy, remember? I hear it all about you."

Len liked to think that, in the years since he boarded that rickety shuttle in Riverside with nothing but his Bones, he'd grown up enough to take responsibility for himself. That included his actions, both good and bad. Nodding, he started talking before the logical part of his brain caught up with heart. "This," he started, holding up his glass, "isn't a big deal, at least not now. I promise you it's gotten better. But when you were little, when your mom and I split, it was different."

"How much different?"

"I was drinkin' myself into an early grave. That's how," McCoy admitted in his usual blunt, no-holds-barred fashion. Though the confession was made with a smile and a self-deprecating shrug of his broad shoulders, the slight tremor in his voice underscored the gravity of his admission. Smirking in the way only the doctor could, he shrugged and added, "It was easier to drink and be numb than it was to deal with my life, the mess it became."

Staring at her father with a mixture of pity and disbelief on her face, she growled, "So you drank. Is there a point? A lot of people have problems, most of them worse than yours. What's your excuse?"

"I don't have any good excuse because this is none, Jo. There never will be. It got out of control, and I wasn't strong enough to ask for help." He polished off the dregs of his glass in one gulp and placed the tumbler back in his desk.

Joanna sat, content to let her silence do the talking for her. The steely gaze she leveled at her father could have melted ice. She exhaled and smoothed one strand of her hair from her face, popping it behind her ear while she waited for the man opposite the desk to continue.

Until Joanna quite literally turned up in front of him, Len resigned himself to having zero relationship with his daughter for the rest of his life. It didn't hurt as badly when the constant reminder of his failure wasn't even in the same galaxy, but he sure as hell felt the sting every time he saw Jo in the hallways or in the mess once she boarded the ship. In his heart, he always thought he'd tell her the truth one day about his relationship with Jocelyn. This just wasn't the way he thought the script was going to play out.

McCoy rolled his eyes inwardly at the irony of it all before he confessed, "You know that night you started that little fire in the kitchen? It was my fault. I wasn't watching you because I was passed out in the next room. That was what really ended our marriage, because she knew I couldn't handle it. Your mom took you, divorced me, and ran. Not that I can blame her."

Joanna felt some of the ice begin to melt. "What? Wait, back up, Dad. I'm confused."

"Your mom went out of town to see some friends," McCoy said, omitting that it was Clay she was visiting. "She left me in charge of you, and instead of doing the responsible thing and staying sober, I had a drink. I told myself that it was only going to be one. And then one turned into two, and then three, four, and five. I woke up to a cop shaking me and to a living room full of fire fighters. They took you away and called your mother. She drove back from Alpharetta, and when she got there, I got the ass chewing of a lifetime. And I deserved it, every damned word."

"What do you mean by that? What happened?" she asked, confused.

"You never got the full story, did you?" When Jo shook her head to the negative, McCoy clenched his jaw, cursing his own stubborn pride and all the avoidable damage it caused. "I knew I couldn't be a parent to you like that. You deserved something better, something with stability. You don't need all the sordid details, but I wasn't in good shape then. I couldn't take care of myself, let alone another person. So I did the best thing I could: I walked away."

"How is that the best for me? How did you know?" Joanna bit out, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. She willed them back, instead focusing her energy on the anger. "They did okay, but I needed my father – my _real_ father. Not a substitute my mom had to find because you couldn't hack it."

McCoy sighed again. "Your mother did right by you, Jo. You may not agree with it and you may not see it now, but you will. I told you – we both made mistakes, me more than her. When it came down to it, she did what she had to do because she loves you. When I sobered up, I realized that it was the most decent thing she could have done. She was trying to save you from me, and as the responsible parent, that was her job."

"Even if it made me miserable?" she asked meekly.

"Even then," the doctor answered honestly. A rare smile tugged at the corners of his lips and he stood, walking around the desk. He stopped in front of Jo, and without words, coaxed her to her feet and simply hugged her. He tilted his head down and pulled her close, tucking his chin against the top of her head. McCoy dropped a kiss on the crown of her head and wrapped his long arms around her much slighter torso, holding her as if he planned to never let go. "I'm so, so sorry, Joanna. For everything," he whispered in her ear.

Jo stiffened instantly, but then relaxed into his arms and returned the embrace. She felt some of the tension and the stress of their relationship bleed out with the motion, and she was sure the sentiment was mutual. The little girl that still lived in the back corner of her mind relished feeling of safety and closeness she got from the simple gesture. The clean smell of his aftershave, the warmth of his body, the steady, strong beat of his heart – it all just felt _right_. She used his uniform shirt as a makeshift Kleenex as she squeezed her eyes shut, feeling a couple of warm tears bleed out across the blue fabric. "I know. I'm sorry, too," she answered honestly with a loud sniffle.

McCoy stepped back and leaned on his desk. "I have not been the father I should have been, but I want you to know that I have always been proud of you," he said, his own eyes shining just as brightly as hers. The doctor's eyes flicked up and to the right, and with a shake of his head, he added a snarky, "Despite the fact you're a pain in my ass," for good measure.

"I learned from the best," Joanna answered with a watery smile.

"Taking lessons from Jim again? I'll have to talk to him about that," Len replied with a laugh as he cupped Jo's face in the palm of his right hand and swiped a gentle thumb under her eyes. Wiping her tears on his pants, he wrapped one arm around her shoulders. "Come on. Let's get out of here. It's been a long day, and I know I need some food."

Jo swallowed the lump in her throat and cleared her throat. "As long as it's pizza, I'm all for it. You buying?" she asked, resituating her red bag on her shoulder while trying to look like she hadn't just been crying.

Len rolled his eyes, but nodded. "For you, I guess I could. Let me get cleaned up here and I'll meet you in the mess in fifteen minutes."

Joanna bobbed her head once quickly and walked out the door, leaving her alone in the deserted corner of sickbay with nothing but her own thoughts. She was never was a believer in fate, but the utter irony of the situation was too strong to be ignored. Her father's drinking cost him his marriage as well as his chance with Joanna through her childhood, but yet, it attracted a recruiter in Chris Pike and a new friend in Jim Kirk. And with that help, he pulled himself together, got his career back on track and wound up as CMO of the Federation's flagship. She was sure it wasn't where he thought he'd wind up, just as she never imagined herself as a Starfleet engineer.

Not bad for the old guy. In fact, Joanna thought with a smirk, she was proud of him, just as she was proud of herself.

Yes, preordained fate could kiss her ass, thanks very much.

* * *

 **Next Up** : Chapel makes a confession that actually shocks Kirk.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: When I was working on edits of this story, I couldn't help but think how much this piece has changed since I first jotted it down two years ago. In the original story, this chapter didn't even exist, something that my Kirk!muse finds rather tragic. I'm rather glad that it's happened to develop the way it did, because it found both balance and heart in the intervening years. Some of that might be attributable to the fact that I'm not as much writing with another author's characterizations in mind with this version as I was before (and if you all haven't tried that, holy HELL is it hard!), but also because I'm a lot more comfortable with the fandom as a whole.
> 
> Anyway, this is it for this particular story. I hope you all have enjoyed it as much as I've had fun dusting it off and reworking it. Any comments, whether you loved it, were indifferent to it, or thought it was the worst piece of shit that ever burned your poor eyes, would be appreciated. Thanks everyone!
> 
> Disclaimer: Yes, I work in accounting and finance. No, I'm not boring. No, really. I'm not. Just ask my coworkers. But either way, Star Trek is not mine and I make no monetary profit from my work. Please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

"So, do you think that'll do it?" Chapel asked in a hushed whisper as she and Kirk scurried around the corner of sickbay when Joanna made her sudden exit. "She didn't look pissed."

Jim pressed his ear towards the hallway, listening for any audible signs of life from his best friend's office. His sharp hearing detected scraping and shuffling as McCoy presumably cleaned his workspace. Broken glass and smashed objects hit the recycler, but not with any kind of forcefulness borne of anger or frustration. Satisfied, Kirk turned to Christine, leaned backwards and propped one foot up against the wall. Jim smiled coyly, nodding his head. "I think we can call tonight a success. Maybe not an outright victory, but hey, these two have a lot to work out."

"Still not willing to admit there might be such thing as a no-win scenario, are you, Captain?"

"Of course not. No win scenarios don't exist," Kirk answered succinctly, peering over the top of Chapel's head for any movement.

"Hmm," Christine replied, averting her eyes.

Ever sharp, Jim easily detected the nurse's shift in demeanor. He titled his head to the side and placed his body directly in front of Chapel's. Waiting until he had her full attention, his eyes searched hers. Jim's eyebrows furrowed at the center when he asked, "Christine? You're not thinking what I _think_ you're thinking, right?"

Chapel pursed her lips. Flatly, she told Kirk, "What you thought was going through my head is probably pretty close to the truth, actually. No-win scenario at its finest? Yeah, I thought that was Len and Jo in a pretty handy nutshell."

Kirk did a double take and snapped his eyes down to Chapel's level. All the hope and elation he felt listening to the snippets of conversation audible through the cracks in the door of McCoy's office dissipated into a neat little puff of figurative smoke as soon as Christine's words computed through his brain. He searched the nurse's face for any signs of facetiousness before he squeaked, "Are you – did you just mean that? Please tell me you're playing."

"I wish I could, Jim," she said truthfully. Chapel closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, her own position mimicking Kirk's perfectly. The lack of sleep really was catching up with her. Sighing, she nodded once, turned her head and confessed, "I've known Len a long time. I know what his relationship – or lack thereof – with Joanna has done to him over the years. He tries to hide it, but he's shit at stuff like that. You know just as well as I do, and you know how he beats himself up over it."

Kirk shuddered involuntarily as flashes of years past raced through his mind. Jim recalled the day he decided to skip another boring Stellar Cartography lecture in favor of some extra "study" time. Intent on swinging by the dorm to change out of his cadet reds, Kirk instead walked in on a vociferous session of The Blame Game via comm. It was the first time Jim had actually witnessed what everyone on campus whispered about: McCoy had an unchecked temper that couldn't be tamed, he wasn't stable, he was running away from his life.

Everything in the room came to a screeching halt the instant Jocelyn and Len noticed Kirk in the doorway. McCoy, red-faced and breathless after nearly a half hour fight with his ex, quickly cut the connection and sat silently while Jim gathered his thoughts. Kirk chewed hard on his lip. He was ready to demand answers; instead, McCoy poured himself a generous drink, took a deep breath and spilled his life story to his shell-shocked roommate. He spared no detail on the path that led him to Starfleet and answered every question Kirk threw at him, no matter how personal or painful. The awkward aftermath was also one of the few times Bones had shown genuine embarrassment in their relationship, and it made Kirk feel marginally uncomfortable.

It was the same uneasy, slightly dirty feeling that was ticking the base of his spine nearly twenty years later, but this time for an all together different reason. Steeling his jaw, Jim took a deep breath, consciously lowered his voice to avoid attracting unwanted attention and answered, "Of course I get it. He's always been like that, and I don't think that'll ever change. But Christine, how long have you known Bones? I can't believe you'd even think something like that!"

Chapel looked contrite. "I feel so guilty about it. Believe me," she began, picking at a hangnail on her left hand. "I love the man to death, but God help me, I didn't think we had a chance on this one. He and Jo are virtually the same person, and she's just so angry with him. I understand why, but I guess I thought that no amount of explanation or groveling on his part would ever solve the problem."

Jim opened his mouth to chastise Chapel for her lack of faith, but as his brain caught up with his mouth, he stopped. Smiling sadly, he laid his hand on her shoulder. "I get it. You're trying to protect him. That's your job as his nurse, and his keeper."

"His keeper? Some days, that goes better than others." As if to assure herself as much as Kirk, Christine added, "You've seen what happens when things go south with them."

Shifting, Jim shoved his hands in the pouch of his sweatshirt and rolled his eyes. "I was his roommate at the Academy, remember?" he asked sarcastically. Jim cleared his throat and in a more serious tone said, "We both knew they'd have to deal with one another eventually. Joanna showing up on board my ship just moved that timeline up by a few years. It sucks right now, but it'll be good for them."

Christine chewed on her lip. "I just don't-I just don't know. How do you know? How can you be so sure all the time?"

"I have faith," Jim replied without hesitation. "Come on, Christine. You know that things are different now. Joanna's not twelve anymore, and Bones isn't the alcoholic deadbeat she thought he was."

"That's exactly my point!" the nurse hissed, blue eyes flashing hotly. "Things are different, yes, but under the surface it's still the same bullshit. It's just packaged in a neater way."

Confused, Jim screwed up his face and asked, "How? I'm confused here. Help a captain out."

"It's been almost twenty years, Jim! Twenty! Imagine if you'd been pulled away from your father for that long. With that much time to think about why it happened-" Chapel stopped herself and clapped one hand over her mouth. Her face burned with embarrassment, and if an airlock opened up beneath her feet, she might have considered jumping through it. "I can't believe I just said that. I'm sorry. Of course you know how that feels. That was really insensitive of me."

"Christine, you don't have to apologize for my dad's death. I made my peace with it a long time ago," Kirk told her candidly while his eyes bounced around the ceiling of sickbay. Softening his eyes, he allowed a boyish smile creep across his face. "Besides, what you said makes perfect sense."

"It does?" she asked, shocked.

"Yeah," Jim began with a smile. "You're right – I don't know what it feels like to be pulled away from my dad like that, and not because I never knew my father. I didn't have a choice, at least not in this universe. There was never any doubt why George didn't came back for me or mom or Sam, and I sure as hell didn't have to wonder if I was why he left. He did it because he had to. Jo didn't have the luxury, so I can understand why she's so upset. And Bones? Well, that's another story."

"Can I ask you a personal question, Sir?" Chapel asked almost meekly.

Jim snorted. "I think we're past the ranks now, Christine. Fire away."

She twisted her hands nervously at her navel. "Did you ever wish that it had been someone else on the bridge of the Kelvin?"

"Almost every day," he answered honestly and nearly instantaneously. "But then I think about what I wouldn't have become, and the people I wouldn't have met."

"You think about what you wouldn't have prevented?" she asked, reading between the lines of the captain's statement while she followed his line of sight towards McCoy's office.

"Yeah," he breathed out. "But I didn't do everything. Hell, I didn't even do 'some' of it. Most of the credit should go to Pike. The man's a miracle worker."

"I would think 'saint' would be a more apt description, putting up with you two without murdering either of you," she said, patting Kirk gently on his arm. "But seriously, Jim. I can't believe I'm about to say this – Len would hate me for it – but you're not giving yourself enough credit. You've had a lot to do with this resurrection of sorts."

Kirk laughed a light, airy chuckle that made Chapel's suddenly dreary mood lift just marginally. "Oh, I think I'm giving myself plenty of credit. Remember? I don't know how to give up?"

Christine returned the captain's genuine smile and replied, "Well, I guess it's good that one of us is too stupid to throw in the towel. No offense, sir."

"None taken. I've gotten used to all those insults over the years. They've actually become compliments," Kirk admitted as the pair fell into a comfortable silence.

Chapel leaned against the bulkhead of the ship and ran a hand through her hair. Eyes wandering around the quiet of sickbay, she said, "Deep down, I always thought Jo and Len were both too fractured, that it just wasn't meant to be. It didn't seem fair, but it was the scenario that seemed most logical."

"Please don't start talking like Spock. It's too late for that. Or early. Or…whatever," Kirk said, dropping his arm down to his side.

"Why didn't you ever give up on him, Jim? Lord knows there have been enough times in my life that I've contemplated how many ways I could murder Len and still get away with it," Christine asked after a long pause between the pair.

"You mean in general, or just this issue in particular?"

A rueful chuckle left her throat. "I think it might be a good idea to just stick with this particular issue for now. I have a feeling that if you were to tell me all the reasons you never bailed on my boss in general, we'd still be here during gamma shift tomorrow."

"Fair enough," he replied. Sobering, Kirk gathered his thoughts and said, "You know, no one's ever asked me that question before, so I've never had to think about it. But if you want the truth, I think I never gave up because they're both still breathing. They have the chance to get to know one another, and to fix what's gone wrong."

Chapel felt her heart constrict at the captain's words and the whimsical, faraway expression on his face. "So, you wanted to see them achieve what you never had the chance to?"

"Exactly."

"Oh, Jim," she breathed. "I don't know whether to hug you or to hit you, but that is the sweetest thing I have ever heard you say."

"Oh, God. You're starting to sound like Bones!" he exclaimed, hushing her with a frantic motion of his hands. "And, keep it down! I'm the captain! I'm supposed to be scary!"

Chapel rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right. This coming from a man who decided an ugly sweater contest on board the ship last Christmas would be good for morale!"

"It was! Everyone thought the senior staff's apparel was hilarious! I'll have you know the furry kitten sweater I was wearing was a gift from my grandfather Tiberius when I was about nine. It has special character, and special winning powers," he protested, arms out at his side and a mock-pout on his full lips.

"I still want to know how you got Spock into a sweater with a bunch of tinsel in the shape of jingle bells, let alone out in public in it!" Christine said, waving a finger at Kirk.

"That, my dear lady, is a trade secret."

"So you lied, then?" she surmised, leveling a disapproving glare at the captain.

"I bent the truth. Come on, it wasn't going to hurt anyone, and the result was epic!" Kirk the infant let out a couple of sarcastically hurt squeaks and waved one hand at the Enterprise's senior nurse. His attention switched when he heard the doors to McCoy's office whoosh open and then closed as the doctor's figure walked smoothly down the hallway. Pointing, he said, "Hey, he's gone."

"Yeah," Chapel agreed with a loud yawn as she followed the doctor's silhouette down the corridor. "Probably a good thing. I'm in love with my bed, specifically the one I'm _not_ in right now."

"I don't know. I heard something about pizza during that argument, and I'm all for crashing the party. I mean, they got us out of bed. I think it's our right," Kirk proposed slyly.

Christine's stomach picked that second to growl. "Well, now that you mention it, pizza does sound kind of good."

Jim flashed the nurse his million-credit smile and offered his elbow in a rare gesture of chivalry. "Shall we?"

Predictably, Chapel rebuffed the captain with a playful shove of his arm. "Oh, get off it, Kirk. Your brand of flattery doesn't impress me."

"Fair enough," Jim agreed, laughing. The two set off in stride for Ten Forward, smiling and joking with one another. As they passed the doors of sickbay, Kirk and Chapel exchanged a surreptitious low-five. "Are you ready for round two?" he asked.

Christine snorted out loud. "Not until I have a beer first."

"Or twelve," Jim scoffed as the two wandered through the nearly deserted corridors of the ship.

Chapel tapped the side of her face with her index finger and placed one hand on her hip. "But I do think that next time, you should make Spock do the honors. He would talk those two into a dead sleep. Wouldn't that fall under captain's prerogative?"

Jim's face went blank. Ever so slowly, a mischievous glint took hold in his eyes that eventually spread throughout his entire face. Tilting his head to the side, he smiled as he said, "Nurse Chapel, I like the way you think. Tell me more…"

**-FIN-**


End file.
